In a manufacturing process of a photomask or a semiconductor device, a method is widely used that processes such as an exposure, a development and an etching are applied to a photosensitive film formed by coating a substrate with a photosensitive agent, so as to form a desired pattern on the substrate. Particularly, in the development process, it is difficult to control a sensitivity of the photosensitive film, since a sensitivity of the photosensitive agent to a liquid developer is affected by a plurality of factors such as a manufacturing lot when the photosensitive agent is manufactured, a coating environment when the photosensitive agent is coated, and a storage environment of the substrate where the photosensitive film is formed.
Consequently, a technology is proposed that measures stages of progress of the development and controls the development process based on the measurement result. This technology is, for example, disclosed in JP-A-2005-217254.
The development method described in JP-A-2005-217254 includes a process of measuring a film thickness of resist while developing the resist exposed and a process of stopping the development when the film thickness of resist becomes a desired thickness.
However, in order to apply the development method to all of the multiple types of patterns different in a dimension, a shape, an arrangement and the like, it is needed to improve an accuracy of dimension.